Republican voters will choose their nominee for attorney general, either Champaign-Urbana attorney Erika Harold or DuPage County Board member and attorney Gary Grasso. Both candidates pledge to do more with the office’s tools — and pursue new ones — to expose clout and corruption throughout Illinois. But that’s just the start of this discussion.

Grasso is an experienced litigator. You’d want him on your side of the table during a messy contract dispute. Meeting with the Tribune Editorial Board, he told us he would use the powers of the office to investigate criminal wrongdoing. When he talks about opioid deaths, he sounds like a tactical local prosecutor on the prowl for bad guys. All good.

But we see a stronger and more versatile candidate in Harold, a Harvard Law School graduate and former Miss America with constitutional law, criminal defense and policy experience. She has the drive, approachability and eloquence not only to set policy for this office but to explain its mission and exhort the people of Illinois to join it. She’d be effective speaking to young people statewide not only about the importance of the law and of integrity in government, but also about the violence they encounter and the education options that can uplift them.

Harold impressed us with her thoughtfulness about an attorney general’s role in setting directions and priorities to best allocate limited resources. When she described the judgment and leadership qualities she sees as crucial, Grasso couldn’t move far beyond the litigation skills he would bring.

When we asked about the role a state A.G. could play in combating homicides — they’re usually prosecuted by local state’s attorneys — Grasso had no compelling response. Harold, by contrast, said she would use the office as a bully pulpit, promote the anti-violence disruption model of CeaseFire and similar groups, and try to focus communities on productively occupying young people during the dangerous hours after their school day ends.

That’s the sort of imagination and away-from-the-office initiative that — in addition to all the conventional duties — this troubled and violence-plagued state needs from its top legal officer.

We like that Harold aims to instill confidence in the office by insisting on a nonpartisan culture. Yes, she is backed by the Illinois Republican Party, which Grasso asserts would compromises her independence. But Harold got in the race before Lisa Madigan, the incumbent Democratic attorney general, announced she wasn’t running. That is, Harold was willing challenge Madigan one-on-one, which Grasso evidently was not. So we don’t hold it against Harold that she had secured the support of party officials by the time Grasso joined her in the race.

Speaking of independence, Harold demonstrated it against establishment Republicans when she unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2014 as an outsider. The party swells didn’t want her in that race. One GOP official compared her to a “streetwalker,” among other insults. In this cycle, a DuPage County GOP official and candidate for an Illinois House seat allegedly asked her if she was a “lesbo” and repeatedly used the N-word during a meeting with her.

From youth to adulthood Harold has faced down bullies. Yet more than toughness separates her from the other good candidate in this race. At several points she spoke to us of deploying resources based not only on her priorities but on evaluating the impacts that an issue such as corruption or unjust property assessment has on the people of Illinois. That settled it. Erika Harold is endorsed.

As the March 20 Illinois primary approaches, you’ll find the candidates’ answers to our surveys, and our endorsements, at chicagotribune.com/candidates.